Happy Place: a poem by Hannah

The highlight of my day is checking my email and finding (often) a letter from someone who's read Invisible and loved it. Hannah wrote to me this week, asking for some tips on how to self-publish. She's in eighth grade and a bit of a poet so I asked her to send me a poem to share. (Thanks Hannah.) Here it is:

I don't understand

How a happy place can be so happy

If you only visit when you're  sad

So today as I walked

Thought the dark tunnels

Painted with fear and anger

Coated with tears of life

I wondered why it took this much

To get where I arrived

Happy

Is such a simple word

That is so hard to reach

But darkness 

Is so easy to fill you

Spreading as we speak

The tunnels were longer this time

And harder to get through

But breaking the wall

Felt that much better 

When I finally pulled through

Only to find where I am now

And don't ask me where that is

Because I honestly don't know

Why the tunnels took me here

And lead me through this road

So let me go

I said to darkness

As I talked to it again last night

I want to find my happy place

And stay there all my life

I don't want to understand

How a happy place can be so happy

If you only visit when your sad